Elementary - A Controlled Descent - Review

"A Controlled Descent," the season three finale of Elementary, was written by series creator Robert Doherty and is clearly intended to be an important "myth" episode. The case of the week is not really a case proper so much as an excuse to put Holmes (Jonny Lee Miller) through the wringer to test his sobriety. For once--and this is a nice change form the usual formula--there isn't even a murder to solve (though there is a death). Nevertheless, the episode is disappointing. Both the plot and the denouement are implausible. While some interesting possibilities for next season open up, as a conclusion for this season, the episode is lacking.

The episode focuses on how Holmes's contrasting relationships with his ex-sponsor Alfredo Llamosa
(Ato Essandoh, who actually has very little to do in the episode) and Oscar Rankin (Michael Weston) reflect the knife-edge balance of his sobriety. Now that hs is no longer Holmes's sponsor, Alfredo has become one of Holmes's few friends. The two share an amusing moment at the beginning of the episode watching a film of the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" routine, the most perfect joke ever crafted, according to Holmes. However, Alfredo disappears under mysterious circumstances, which constitutes the first challenge to Holmes's sobriety in the episode. As he knows, relapse is always possible--having lost his friend Alastair to such a relapse earlier in the season--so he fears not only foul play but also backsliding.

This point is crystallized by the reappearance of Oscar, Holmes's former "friend" from his heroin days, who last (and first, for that matter) appeared in episode 3.16 ""For all you Know," another epsiode exploring Holmes's addiction (an episode also co-written by Doherty) and the detrimental effect he had on others and others had on him when he was an addict. Alfredo is a friend and an aid to Holmes in beating his addiction; Oscar may have seemed like a friend, but he never was. Instead, he was a threat, and he becomes one far more overtly in "A Controlled Descent." Even before the real plot is revealed--Oscar has kidnapped Alfredo to force Holmes to help find Oscar's missing sister Olivia--one can hardly miss the contrast between Alfredo and the dirty, twitchy, sore-covered Oscar. Oscar represents the descent into which Holmes had plunged in the past, while Alfredo represents his climb out--their opening scene is even set on the roof of Holmes's brownstone.

Sadly, Oscar's plot doesn't make much sense. Clearly resentful of Holmes, he has kidnapped Alfredo
to force Holmes to help find this missing sister. How he knows about Alfredo is unclear, how somebody as clearly messed-up as he is could manage to plan and pull off a kidnapping is unclear, and even how he could manage to overpower and move a guy who weighs fifty pounds more than he does (as we are told in the episode)--even with a gun--is thinly explained. It becomes clear as the episode proceeds that Oscar really does not need Holmes to conduct this search, as tracking Olivia's movements proves remarkably simple. The point, of course--and in fact my wife said, about a third of the way through the episode, "this is just a big ruse to try ot get Holmes using again"--is not the "case," such as it is, but rather Oscar's vengeful desire to drag Holmes back down to his level, as represented rather heavy-handedly by the tawdry shooting gallery to which he takes Holmes, and by the dark tunnel to which he finally leads his former friend.

This false friend contrasts with Holmes's true friends, who are trying to help from a distance. While Holmes, basically himself a hostage of Oscar's, looks for Olivia, Watson (Lucy Liu), Bell (Jon Michael Hill) and Gregson (Aidan Quinn) dig into Oscar's life to try to find Alfredo. Gregson explicitly calls himself and Bell Holmes's (and Watson's) friends, to rather drill home the point about the contrasting relationships. Holmes figures out that he's being played when he finds Olivia, dead of an overdose, but also realizes that Oscar had already found her himself before leading Holmes through the motions. At this point Oscar admits his true goal and tells Holmes that unless Holmes uses, Alfredo will die. As Holmes is faced with this dilemma, his phone rings, and he gets the news that Alfredo has been found and is safe.

Problem solved, right? Holmes does not have to make the difficult decision whether to use or to leave
his friend to die, right? Well, sadly, no. Holmes pummels Oscar and then drops his phone--the lifeline to his friends, as it often is seen to be in the series--picks up the heroin kit, and trudges into the underpass where Olivia's body lies. The symbolism is not exactly subtle. We are left to infer that he uses. In other words, Oscar wins, even though he loses, by making Holmes see himself  as an addict again, as a hopeless case. At the end of the episode, Holmes is back on the roof--ironically in an elevated position again, but sitting alone and looking more than a little out of it. We learn from Watson that Holmes's father has found out what has happened and is taking a flight to New York. So, maybe we will get to meet Holmes senior next season. And that's the episode.

I found Oscar's motivation easy enough to believe, but not his ability to pull off his plan. The episode also did not, in my opinion, make Holmes's succumbing to heroin in these circumstances plausible (to be fair, we don't actually see him use; I am inferring that he did and expect that we are supposed to so infer). Other episodes, even this season, when he has been tempted, offered more believable tests than this. What we have here seems to be me to be a rather contrived way to trouble Holmes's situation by means of an unlikely adversary, one who ought to be no match for Holmes. The point, I suppose, is that Oscar is really just a stand-in for the temptation to use, but if so, the episode deals with the idea rather ham-handedly.

But what did you think? Did Holmes use? Did he do so plausibly? Does Oscar "work" as a villain? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.